John brainerd biography wikipedia

Born ; died February 1, , Kennett Square, Pa. Professional Experience: Brainerd remained his whole life with the Moore School: instructor, ; administrative leader of the ENIAC project, ; director, ; retired Emeritus University Professor, ; established the first evening graduate school in electrical engineering, ; first academic program in systems engineering, John Grist Brainerd, a life-long professor at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, and head of the team that created ENIAC from conception through construction to final operation, died on February 1, , at the age of 83, at the Quaker retirement community of Crosslands in Kennett Square, Penn.

He formerly lived in Exton, Penn.

John Grist Brainerd was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 7, During his undergraduate years he worked as a reporter for the Philadelphia.

At the time of his death he was Emeritus University Professor. While working his way through college, he was at one time a part-time police reporter for the now-defunct Philadelphia North American. In he helped establish the first evening graduate program in electrical engineering. He initiated new electrical engineering courses and was co-author of two pioneering textbooks, High Frequency Alternating Currents , and Ultra-High Frequency Techniques The latter was a major aid in training and upgrading engineers who were needed for radar development.

Brainerd was born in ; he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in , and a Ph.D.

In addition to his research, publication, and teaching which was his lifetime love , he contributed to the work of technical committees and the organization of the IRE, AIEE, and its jointure, the IEEE. Even after retirement in , he continued to commute from Crosslands to his Moore School office and served as president of the Society for the History of Technology, in which he had been active for many years.

He made his chief contribution to computing when he played a major management role in realizing the proposals of engineer J. Presper Eckert and the late physicist John W. As a professor at the Moore School, he endorsed and took formal responsibility for the design and construction proposal to the Army, and was designated as the principal investigator.

Controversy about the relative roles and contributions to ENIAC has been constant since the importance of the computer was first recognized by others, but there is no question about Brainerd's support of the project when it was just a dream, declared to be wild, impractical, and impossible by some who have since forgotten their myopia. Burks and Alice R.